Most deadly rockfall landslide hits Himachal Pradesh, destroys bridge like a hundred missiles fired

What tragedy struck the town of Batseri, and the tourists visiting it, on 25th July 2021, a Sunday afternoon.

While this has been a huge tragedy that our contributor Sagar witnessed and filmed at Batseri over the weekend, there are take-aways that this sad incident can give the world, to help ensure that such incidents are fewer and far between in the future... There are lessons thatHimalayan tourists and local residents can learn from this tragedy, in order to avoid such incidents.

We definitely need better outreach and disaster management and planning in the Himalaya, on a local and regional level. Had the previous day's warning signs and smaller landslides been heeded, the town of Batseri could have been evacuated and the Batseri-Sangla-Chitkul road closed until further notice. We need to encourage plantation of appropriate species of trees on all bare hillsides that are not naturally bare or covered by grasslands, to bind the soil and slopes better, and act as rock and landslide brakes.

Our contributor Sagar showed tremendous presence of mind to continue to film the rockfall despite being in the direct line of the rocks falling. His room and its windows were also attacked by the rocks.

“The hill top is highly prone to landslides. We have been observing the shooting stones from the hill top for the last two days. Yesterday too, a vehicle was damaged but luckily no one was injured,” said Pradeep Negi, Pradhan, Batseri panchayat. On Sunday, nine tourists were killed when the boulders fell on their Tempo Traveller, while they were heading towards Sangla from Chitkul village.

According to Deputy Commissioner (Kinnaur), Abid Hussain Sadique, the incident occurred on Sunday afternoon when multiple landslides, triggered by recent rainfall, collapsed a bridge and damaged vehicles on the Batseri-Sangla road. -www.hindustantimes.com

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